


To Shape a Life

by In_Dee



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:08:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_Dee/pseuds/In_Dee
Summary: What does it take to shape a life, a person, a character?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	To Shape a Life

**Author's Note:**

> As kind of a partner piece to “Collecting People”, this story follows Callen through his youth.  
> You don't necessarily have to read "Collecting People" to understand this one though.

Even as a five year old, G. Callen knew that he was different. He was an outsider, an outcast. And he was even set apart from the other outsiders he was grouped with.

What made him an outsider was that…

… he didn’t have a mother.

… he didn’t have a father.

… he didn’t have a loving family.

… he didn’t have a home.

What made him an outcast even from the other outsiders?

He didn’t have a name. Just a letter.

Xxxxxxx

He didn’t remember anything from before he had been placed in the first orphanage. People tried to get him to tell them his name, anything about his parents or his past.

He wanted to tell them, but there was nothing to tell. He just didn’t remember.

The first impressions he had of his young life were grownups looking down on him over their glasses, shaking their heads and narrowing their eyes.

He wasn’t lying. He just didn’t know.

He didn’t speak much, remaining quiet mostly.

He could hear them whispering about him, labeling him...

Quiet and shy.

Xxxxxxx

He was so excited when he was placed with a family for the first time. In his young mind, he thought he would finally belong somewhere, be part of a loving family, have something every other kid seemed to have.

Over the following years, his expectation of foster families changed markedly.

The first family was a good one, a young couple looking to adopt… until the man died in a car crash.

So Callen was sent back into the system, back to an orphanage after only six weeks of family heaven.

Returning into the fold of children was difficult.

The social workers added ‘sullen’ to his description.

Xxxxxxx

He went through three more cycles of foster homes that mostly remained indifferent to him, slowly eroding the ‘happy family’ image his young mind had painted for him before.

It was foster home #5 that shattered any illusions forever.

It was there that he patched himself up alone for the first time… at the age of seven.

He would forever remember the sound of the man’s fist connecting with his jaw, the feeling of falling backwards and the stunned moment of incoherence afterwards… all of it over a mug that had fallen out of his hands and broken on the stone floor.

He’d had nightmares for days afterwards, but instead of being comforted, the foster parents ridiculed and berated.

From then on, whenever he had a nightmare, he would know not to go to the parents. Instead, he would curl into himself and shake in fear until he was too exhausted to stay awake any longer.

The social workers added ‘withdrawn’ to his file.

Xxxxxxx

With how many foster homes he rotated in and out of, Callen learned to distinguish very quickly between ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘indifferent’.

Basically, upon entering the home he would eventually know how things stood.

It was the little things that made up the atmosphere… toys littering the lawn, laughter sounding out or hushed and fearful silence of other foster siblings present in the house.

Also, he learned to gauge moods and to glance behind facades. Eventually, he would be able to see not only mannerisms and facial features but also understand micro-expressions, word inflections or furtive eye-movements - not that he would know to put those fancy words to those things in his youth; that would only come later.

Xxxxxxx

Over the years, G. Callen learned to expect bad things from people. He became a hardened survivor of mistreatment and understood that there was no time to be weak, no time to even _appear_ weak.

He learned to patch himself up, to disregard pain and hold it in, rise above it and soldier on.

It was physical and psychological violence both that shaped his body and mind.

From the first slaps and punches at the age of seven, to being confined into the pitch blackness of the cellar for hours on end at the age of nine, to being hit with the broom handle at the age of ten, to the cigarette butts at the age of 12 and 15 respectively. All that and everything else in between and beyond.

All his young life, he experienced not only abuse but also loss… from the loss of his youth, of naïveté and childish dreams to the more real loss of foster siblings beaten to death by their foster father.

He became numb to it, became unable to attach to others. It was a defense mechanism as much as it was an instinct.

Before he learned that the hard way, he experimented with different things to try and make himself belong. He tried being the best student there was, tried being the class clown, tried doing this and that, but eventually, he withdrew and tried to remain mostly invisible.

He eventually understood that he could _try_ to prove himself worthy of trust and love all that he wanted, but he would never _get_ that trust or love from the people he was handed to. Eventually, the urge to protect himself from further emotional heartache won out over the need to fit in.

That’s when he started trying to keep his head down. He understood that being the center of attention was equivalent to becoming a target. The less you were noticed, the safer you were. As long as he could stand in a room and remain unnoticed, he stood a chance of sleeping with fewer bruises.

At the same time, he learned that he couldn’t look away from mistreatment of others. He could endure it himself, but watching the parents go after another - often younger - sibling was something he stopped being able to tolerate. Whenever he had the option, he would keep his head down, be a loner, but if need be, he would do what he could to make sure others escaped the parents’ wrath.

The first time he purposely put himself in harm’s way so a younger boy remained untouched was at the age of thirteen. He still bore the scars from that night on his arms and shoulders.

Xxxxxxx

He tried to be away from whatever foster home he was placed in, whenever he could. He stretched the curfews until the last possible moment and roamed around the city.

He tried to be out on the streets, have some kind of fun, pretend his life wasn’t like this. He would pretend to be a business man, mimicking their mannerisms and ticks. He would escape to some park or other place where people were milling around and mingling. There he would watch the crowds and pick out different people. He would observe them and try to pin down what made them _them_ , distill their essence in the way they moved or behaved.

It was a childish game, an escape mechanism that not only made the time pass, but one that also gave him observational skills that helped in gauging people, something that he used to his advantage whenever he was brought into a new loving dysfunctional foster family.

Callen grew up living on instincts and adrenaline. He learned to trust not only his gut feelings and instincts but also to make decisions quickly and decisively.

Indecision was what got you hurt and he learned to consider all the angles quickly and act before hesitation could cost him.

Therefore, he always listened to his instincts when they told him to bug out.

Even in his young years he had acquired enough street smarts to survive without a roof over his head. Sometimes being homeless was preferable to being under the same roof as the people who were supposed to take care of him.

The social workers added ‘runaway’ to his file.

Xxxxxxx

Aside of the people-reading and harmless pretending skills he acquired, he also learned less legal things over the years, like pick-pocketing, breaking locks and hotwiring cars.

At the age of fifteen, Callen knew his chances of going somewhere and making something out of himself were ever decreasing.

His life had become one vicious circle of abuse, running away, trying to get by and being thrust back into the system. He was tired of it, tired of being who he had to be and tired of knowing he had very few options. Holding down a job was difficult if you were shipped all over the city and often couldn’t move or function properly when the bruises and cracked ribs made their presence known.

He had seen more violence in his few years than most people did in a lifetime and he had lost his belief in people and humanity on the whole.

Consciously, he knew he was on the short track to a life spent in prison, having tangled with the police and justice system already - roughly around the time that Social Services added ‘troublemaker’ to his file.

When he was caught by the police for robbing a storage locker and brought before the judge, he didn’t expect anything other than being sentenced to a stint in Juvie.

It was inside the Juvenile Detention Centre he was surprised though.

He had expected more of the same he already knew - restrictions and being forced under someone else’s will. He got that right. What he hadn’t expected was the reality of it - not the guards and their liberal use of punishments, but even more so the atmosphere among the other inmates. In various orphanages and larger foster families (as well as most schools he had attended), there was a pecking order, and while that could be frustrating and sometimes end in fights, that was minor compared to the situation inside the Detention Center. It was a lot more serious and vicious than outside.

Gangs ruled the Detention Center. Until that moment in his life, Callen had always stayed away from gangs and he would prefer to keep it that way; for one thing because gangs were an even shorter trip to prison or an early grave respectively, and for another thing because he didn’t do well with authority. Still, inside Juvie it got markedly difficult to stay out of the gang’s paths because they were actively looking for trouble.

Callen had learned to fight for himself and not take any shit while playing possum, but the threats inside the Detention Center were far larger and the repercussions more dire.

If he had never slept well before in orphanages or foster families, he didn’t really sleep at all in Juvie.

It took three weeks for him to be fed up with it (and in the privacy of his own mind he might be tempted to admit to being scared) and he used a tiny opportunity to escape the Detention Center. He stole a car - talk about behaving better in the future, but then again, he hadn’t finished his time in Juvie so they probably just hadn’t had the chance to properly ‘correct’ him - and got the hell out of dodge.

Or well, he would have… if the police hadn’t by chance tried to stop him in a regular control. He lost the ensuing car chase, wrapped the car around a telephone pole and totaled it.

There was a tiny moment when he wished he hadn’t only totaled the car.

Being re-arrested by the police and waiting to be returned to the hell he had just escaped from, knowing he had only worsened his situation and dumped himself further down the road to criminal life, Callen sat in the back of a police cruiser while the officer in charge argued with a small woman. The officer was gesticulating wildly while the woman stood still, poised with grace, her movements speaking of complete control - over herself and the situation around her.

When the second officer drew him out of the police car and towed him over to where the woman stood, Callen frowned to himself. He thought this was rather unusual.

He kept his head down, his chin tucking down to his chest, hair covering his eyes. He watched her without being obvious about it, his shoulders slumped, half-way resigned to whatever fate threw at him now and half-way to considering how to get out of this new situation.

When the woman kept watching him in return, not saying anything, he felt himself shifting uncomfortably.

“What?” he asked eventually.

The woman simply continued watching him, a small enigmatic smile playing over her features. “Very impressive, Mr. Callen. Very impressive, indeed.”

Not knowing what to say to that, he decided to go with the first thing that came to his mind. “You’re really short…” He suspected that it could be considered insulting… then again, who was he kidding, insulting someone was the least of his problems.

The woman actually grinned, her eyes sparkling with mirth, but she didn’t reply.

“You taking me back to Social Services?” he asked, barely refraining from asking whether she was taking him back to Juvie. On the other hand, Social Services were just a tiny step above Juvie.

“No,” she said firmly, shaking her head. “You’re never going there again. You can stay with me for as long as you like. … I’ve been watching you for quite a while. You have great potential. And I have a plan for you, Mr. Callen.”

By all rights, those words should make him suspicious and urge him to run. He didn’t trust anyone anymore and he certainly shouldn’t go along with any plans anyone had for him. Alarm bells should be clanging full force, shutters should be coming down and DEFCON mode should be activated... instead he felt strangely calm in the presence of this small woman.

For some reason, it felt safe to go with her.

Also, considering her seize he figured she wouldn’t be able to give him too much trouble if he decided to leave.

Xxxxxxx

As a rule of thumb, Callen never slept much, let alone _well_.

The first night at Hetty’s property, he slept seven hours straight. He tried rationalizing it by remembering he had barely slept at all in Juvie and was simply exhausted, but he also knew he tended to sleep at least a little bit better if he was in a placement that felt ok.

This placement at Hetty’s mansion actually felt more than ok. He didn’t feel the need to be constantly on guard.

The only thing that unnerved him was that he couldn’t get a read on Hetty. While that usually should make him twitchy and prone to running, in this case it rather intrigued him.

She was a strange lady of contradictions. All of her movements were efficient and graceful. She didn’t waste words or movements, instead all she did, she did with precise and graceful motions. It fascinated him and he caught himself mimicking her in his old game of pretend.

He watched her covertly while they were sharing lunch two days after he came to live with Hetty. Several silent minutes into the meal, Hetty tilted her head to the side, a small smile on her lips. “Out with it, Mr. Callen.”

He startled at having been caught. Being caught in something was never a good thing. “N-nothing,” he muttered, turning all of his attention to his meal. His skin was prickling, cold sweat breaking out while he wondered if he had blown his chance. So far, he had felt safe here, but at the same time, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He felt Hetty’s gaze on him, felt his shoulders rise up to his ears while he tried making himself smaller. When Hetty put her fork and knife down, he flinched. She might not look like much, but he had learned the hard way not to underestimate anyone and her movements weren’t only graceful but controlled and he was by now rather certain that she could give him some trouble after all.

There was a quiet exhale coming from where Hetty was sitting, but he didn’t look up. His head only shot up when Hetty’s fingers settled around his wrist. It was a light touch, not restrictive or demanding, just a touch. His eyes fell to her hand while his mind tried to catch up, to understand this physical contact. It was gentle and careful and it was something so completely foreign to him that his mind basically grinded to a halt. After long moments of silence, Callen eventually raised his eyes to the woman, searching her features.

For once, it was easy to read her and he had the distinct impression that she _let_ him see her, that she lowered her guards to let him look. What he saw was benign. Her eyes were steady and calm, there was compassion but not pity in them. Her features were open and relaxed, no held back anger in it. He looked deeper still, watching for those small and fleeting expressions that usually told him more than any pretty façade. He found those expressions and they told him the same thing. Slowly, Callen allowed his shoulders to sink and it garnered a small smile on Hetty’s features.

“You have nothing to fear, Mr. Callen, and you can always speak your mind freely in this house,” she told him calmly before she slowly withdrew her hand and returned to her meal, leaving him to contemplate her words and their meaning.

Later, he would look back on that shared meal and would be able to pinpoint it as the exact moment he knew it would be alright to place his trust in this woman.

Xxxxxxx

He found a safe place for himself in Hetty’s home. Callen still kept mostly to himself, but he didn’t shy away from Hetty’s presence or that of her bodyguard, safekeeper or whoever the ex military man was.

Hetty’s library held an appeal to him and Callen often curled up with a book, escaping into wondrous worlds and leaving his own behind. He was in a better place in Hetty’s mansion, but ghosts still followed him around. It took time for him to settle and really allow himself to believe that things could finally go his way.

Sometimes he shared the library with Hetty, sometimes he was on his own.

There were books in different languages all over the library and he felt intrigued by that - not only by the lure of those books, but also by the fact that if Hetty had these books, she would be able to read them.

She caught him rifling through those books several times and eventually suggested he could learn foreign languages. He had scoffed at first, but eventually decided to give it a try. Much to his surprise, he had found he did pick up on languages rather quickly and he gleefully used that new talent to explore more books in Hetty’s library.

The first time Hetty had given him a book and suggested he read it, he had given her a small smile and told her he would return it to the library as soon as he was finished.

The micro-expression was small and fleeting but considering he had grown up on being able to read persons, Callen had seen it: sadness and incredulity mixing together before Hetty schooled her features again and shook her head, telling him that it wasn’t one of _her_ books, but that it belonged to _him_ now.

There was something strange about owning something and Callen wasn’t really sure what to do with that. Having grown up with nothing but the clothes on his back or what the foster parents deemed him worthy of (which wasn’t much), he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing with a book to call his own.

Slowly, over time, his collection of books grew - though he would probably never quite get the hang of the meaning of ‘worldly possessions’.

Xxxxxxx

Under Hetty’s watchful guidance, slowly the wounds growing up the way he had started mending. It would only be years later that he understood that what she had given him was not only a roof and a home, but a place to grow, a place to spread his wings and start believing he could make something out of himself.

He caught up with school - at first under protest, but quickly determining this could be his chance to escape the bleak outlook his life had had before.

Not long ago, he had battled against the knowledge of a life on a fast track to prison and crime, now he had been handed an opportunity to do something better, to _be_ something better. He decided to grab onto that chance.

While he doubted that many of his peers were even aware of his presence at school because he tended to fade into the background, it didn’t take long for him to catch up and do well.

It felt as if his brain was soaking up whatever knowledge it could get its hands on and he reveled in the opportunity to learn, to test himself and busy his mind with knowledge instead of sheer survival.

It was a rather jarring contrast to how his life had been before.

Xxxxxxx

Aside of knowledge and trust, Hetty also started teaching him other things. She didn’t push him, but instead lured him in by his curiosity…

Callen watched Hetty from the kitchen.

She wielded a large stick, going through some motions, her ever present grace captivating him and drawing him out of the house and into the garden.

His eyes followed the movements, the slow and careful arch the stick made. Hetty’s hands were sure and yet relaxed around the wood and he glanced up when she stopped, their eyes meeting.

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” he murmured, shifting back on his foot, prepared to leave if she asked him to.

Hetty gave him a smile and stepped closer, the stick held casually in one hand.

She didn’t give off the vibe that she wanted him to leave, so his feet remained planted on the ground. “What are you doing?” Callen asked carefully and curiously, motioning to the stick with a tilt of his head.

Hetty glanced down and then brought the stick forward for closer inspection, offering it for him to look at more closely. “It’s an art as much as it is a fighting technique,” she explained calmly, watching him as he studied the weapon in her hand, “do you want to learn?”

Callen glanced at her and back at the stick before giving her a slow nod, intrigued by the opportunity.

After getting another stick from her weapons’ room, Callen soon found himself with a stick of his own in his hand, contemplating weight and balance. It had seemed easier when he had watched Hetty. He turned it over before firmly closing his hands around it.

“It’s not a baseball bat, Mr. Callen,” Hetty admonished.

It happened rarely anymore these days, but sometimes, his temper could still be ignited quickly, especially when he was out of his comfort zone. Yearlong experience of being shunned and ridiculed could make his fuse go up in flames and this was one of those occasions.

Frustration surged through him and Callen threw the stick down, “as an illiterate buffoon, I wouldn’t know,” he snarled, turning and stalking off.

He didn’t even get three steps before he found himself face down on the grass, rolling quickly onto his back and stopping in breathless surprise when Hetty’s stick was pointed at his throat, the woman’s face set in anger.

“Don’t ever disrespect a weapon again by throwing it down in a temper tantrum,” she told him firmly, anger ringing clear in her voice. Only a moment later, her features smoothed out as she withdrew the stick and leaned down. A small part of his brain was astonished that despite what she had just done, he didn’t feel scared or distrustful of her.

“And don’t ever disrespect yourself again by talking badly about yourself,” she went on more gently when her hand settled over his heart. There was compassion and care in her features when her hand made contact with his chest and he glanced from her hand to her face, meeting her eyes.

Silent seconds ticked by before he gave a small nod. Only then did Hetty straighten up and step back. “Now, Mr. Callen, do you want to try again?” she asked.

He found himself nodding before his mind had caught up with the question and Callen rolled to his feet before returning to where the stick had fallen. He picked it up and turned to Hetty for direction.

It was just one form of martial art he would be introduced to under Hetty’s guidance over the years.

Xxxxxxx

He jumped in surprise when Hetty appeared by his side. He had been lost in his thoughts, but even if he hadn’t, she had the tendency to just appear out if thin air. It had unnerved him greatly in the beginning but he was more or less immune to it by now.

Hetty sat down next to him, turning her body toward him. She slid a coin over the counter towards him. “Penny for your thoughts?” she nudged.

What had started as a joke had become somewhat of a game to them. She would ask him that same question and hand him a penny which he would pocket as payment for an answer to her question. The penny would find its way into a jar in his room - at first it had been a stash of security in case he had to run, later it had grown into a pile of money he didn’t need but had come to own anyhow… similar to the books in his room.

Callen toyed with the coin for a few moments before sliding it back to her. “Don’t think you’d want to know,” he murmured, his head down.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hetty frown.

She slid the coin back to him. “I wouldn’t have asked if I had no interest in your answer, Mr. Callen.” Her voice was firm and yet gentle. In the year he had been living here with Hetty, things had changed drastically for him. He should have known it wouldn’t be forever though.

He sighed softly, his eyes following the lines in the marble countertop of the kitchen island they were sitting around.

Hetty stood from her chair and he had to fight the urge to call her back, not wanting to upset her and lose her as he had lost anyone who might have shown an interest in him before. He bit his lip when he saw her move around the counter and towards the stove instead of leaving the room as he had expected. He watched her while she prepared tea, somehow comforted by watching the familiar action.

Before long, Hetty put down two cups of tea and returned to her seat beside him.

They sat in silence while sipping their tea and Callen found himself struggling to hold on to his silence. He knew Hetty, knew her tactic; she could outwait God if she wanted to and had employed that tactic on him before. If he didn’t leave - which he couldn’t do without being rude - he would probably soon spill the beans.

The minutes ticked by and eventually, Callen sighed softly. “I will be leaving soon,” he whispered, tucking is chin against his chest.

There was a brief silence before Hetty took a shallow breath. “What makes you say that, Mr. Callen?”

Again, there was a pause. “I’ll be eighteen soon,” he murmured.

Silence fell again, but it didn’t feel like a doomed silence, rather like an uncertain one.

“Your point being?” Hetty prompted eventually.

He glanced up and over to her with a frown, “I’ll be aging out of the system,” he clarified, his eyes narrowing in an emotion he himself couldn’t name.

Hetty held his gaze firmly, her head tilted slightly to the side, her features softening a little. “If you think back to the day I brought you here, Mr. Callen… do you remember what I told you?”

Their eye contact remained and he tried rewinding back to _that day_ , the day she had saved him from prison, the day she had saved him from himself, not expecting anything in return.

He was still caught up in the contemplation of what would have happened if she hadn’t taken him in, when Hetty took pity on him and elaborated.

“I told you that you could stay with me for as long as you liked,” she reminded him.

“Social Services won’t be paying anymore.” The words were out before he could stop them and he bit his tongue. Stupid. How could he be so stupid?

Hetty arched an eyebrow at him before pointedly glancing around the large kitchen, into the hallway leading to all the other rooms in the mansion. He followed her gaze before they both looked back to the other. “Do you really think that the money Social Service is paying is needed to secure your place in this house? You should know better than that by now, Mr. Callen.”

The admonishment was soft, gentle and he didn’t hear any disappointment in her voice. At the same time, he felt disappointed in himself. Hetty was different to all the other foster placements he’d had.

She was different to anyone he knew. Period.

Her words replayed in his head, stuck on a loop as he tried digesting them. When he looked at her again, Hetty held his gaze and it was one of the few times she lowered her guard enough for him to look beneath the masks. It seemed to him that she knew he needed to _see_ so he could understand and take to heart what she had told him… what she had given him.

After several silent moments, Callen felt his shoulders relaxing, the stress slowly falling off his body and he released a soft sigh.

He wasn’t sure if he could instantly relax into what she had told him, or if he would need time to come to grips with it, but he felt the first stirrings of belief reaching for him.

Xxxxxxx

It hadn’t been obvious then, but later, he would often reflect on Hetty’s subtle guidance into his profession. She had seen something in him that no one - especially not he himself - had seen and she had begun to nurture it.

He didn’t know what she had seen in that lonely, petulant, scared and scarred boy and she had never told him, but he knew that he owed her not only his life and his freedom, but also his self-esteem and much of his refined training. While he had learned a lot of crude skills during his years in the system and on the streets, it had been Hetty who had shaped that mismatched skillset into a massive toolbox he could draw from in any situation he found himself in.

Without her he would never have ended up where he eventually found himself at now - nor would he have survived some of the encounters he’d had on the way.

Callen put the small package of tea on Hetty’s desk.

He had brought Hetty tea as a gift on many special occasions or when he returned from certain regions all around the globe. Many of those blends were more expensive than what he now left for her, what he left for her each year on this specific date.

It was a batch of the first tea she had ever prepared for him - that very same day she had first taken him in. Each year since then - whenever he was in the country at least - he had purchased a small package of that very same tea for her and left it on her desk.

The small, private smile that fell over Hetty’s features whenever she found his gift let him know that she appreciated this subtle reminder of their shared history.

Callen let his fingers brush over the package before he turned and headed towards his own desk to prepare for the day ahead. Just another crazy day in the Office of Special Projects where he put to good use all that his mentor had taught him.


End file.
